Forgetting

I've been cleaning and purging my house lately in an effort to simplify and this sorting through old things has brought back a lot of memories. It has also caused me to realize that a lot of my life is forgotten. I'll find something that at one point I must have thought important to hang on to but I now have absolutely no clue as to what importance it had or why I saved it.

As we talk about Living in Truth I think that is an important thing to realize. Not only does the meaning of material things we have fade away, but most of the things that vex us now will mean nothing to us in a year or two. So why do we let them vex us now?

Forgetting is not always a bad thing. To forget offenses we might have taken, to forget about what other should or should not have done, to forget our past mistakes, to forget the human foibles of others, to forget others' mistakes is good not bad.

Sometimes in our effort to Live in Truth the best thing we can do when we are feeling vexed is to ask ourselves, "Is this going to matter one year from now?" and if the answer is, "No!" then laugh at ourselves and move on.

The Power of Disregard

Forgive yourself and move on!

One of the reasons I love teaching the epistles of Paul is because Paul understood what it means to Live in Truth, and he teaches me so much about it. For example in his letter to the Philippians he says, “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth into those things which are before” (Philippians 3:13).  In my own words, Paul says that he hasn’t learned much, but he does know one thing and that is that the past is past and we should disregard it and move forward. That doesn’t mean we don’t remember the past and learn from it, but we don’t dwell on the past and let it ruin our future.

When you stop to think about it, Paul had a lot of baggage from his past. Once he came to know that Jesus Christ was the promised Messiah how his conscience must have pricked him knowing that he had assented to the death of Stephen, and that he had brought great harm on families by taking parents who believed away to prison. Imagine how haunted he would have been by the remembered cries of those children after he came to be a believer himself. Paul could have had a great pity party, wallowed in his horrendous mistakes until they debilitated him, and never done any good.

But he didn’t! Paul disregarded those things from his past and reached forth into the future and did so much good. That’s Living in Truth!

Forgiving

Way back in 1985 I wrote an article for the Ensign entitled “A Difficult Kind of Forgiveness.”  After it appeared the editors told me that it had generated more mail than most of their articles do. My experience has also been that any lesson on forgiveness generates more questions and comments than most other subjects because forgiveness is difficult and at the same time something we need to do almost every day of our lives.

Today I taught on forgiveness and used this quote from Joseph Smith which I wanted to share.  “One of the most pleasing scenes that can transpire on earth, is, when a sin has been committed by one person against another, to forgive that sin: and then, according to the sublime and perfect pattern of the Savior, pray to our Father in heaven to forgive also.” (“A Friendly Hint to Missouri” Times and Seasons,  March 15, 1844, p. 473. TLDP: 206).

There are two things that strike me about this quote. First, is that we not only need to forgive, but that we need to pray that God will forgive the person. Second, when you notice when and where this statement was first published you realize that it came during the Missouri persecution of the saints. If Joseph is asking the saints to forgive and pray for their enemies for the atrocious crimes being perpetrated then, certainly we can do the same with those who have trespassed against us.

For Give

If you’ve followed Good News! for long you already know how much I love words and how much they have taught me. For example, the word forgive is one we’ve all heard all our lives.  We know what it means, but that meaning is intensified when we look at the word closer.

Our English word forgive  is made out of two words, the preposition for and the verb to give. We all know that the verb to give means “to deliver up or yield without payment.”  But few of us realize that for means “through and through” or “thoroughly.”  So forgive means to thoroughly deliver up without payment.” And what is it we need to give up without expecting anything in return?  We give up any bad feelings, the desire for retribution, and any inclining we may have harbored that the offending party suffers for what they have done to us.

Most of think that forgiveness  is something that blesses the other person, but as Elder Orson F. Whitney said, “We are required to forgive all men, for our own sakes, since hatred retards spiritual growth.”

When we refuse to forgive it is like drinking poison in hopes of hurting the other person. But it never hurts anyone but us! Forgiving brings peace, love, and the spirit into our lives!

Freed From The Pit

One of the big problems with being in the Pit of Illusion is that no good is found there. For example, while in the Pit because of an unforgiving heart, your heart has no room to receive the good God is trying to give you. But when you forgive, clear all the grudges and bad feelings out of our hearts, we create space for God’s goodness come into the heart. Forgiveness is letting go of old thoughts and attitudes so that new thoughts and attitudes can find a place in us.

But there is something else. As long as we hold on to a grudge the person we are refusing to forgive has power over us. It is as if they are standing over us with their foot on our throats while we lie helpless on the floor. But what has happened in the past cannot hurt us unless we are so fixed upon it that it holds us captive.

The amazing thing is that all we need to do to free ourselves from the jailor that holds us captive under foot is to forget about the offense. Forget the grudge and you slip out from under the captor’s foot. You stand tall and walk away a free person.

By letting go of past grudges, heartaches, sorrows or whatever negative emotions hold us captive, we open our hearts to receive the present good and we are free—free to move on and free to be forgiven ourselves. As the Savior taught, “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you” (Matthew 6:14).

By forgiving, we have nothing to lose but vexation and everything to gain! So open your heart and receive!

More Truth Tools

The Good News today is that there are more

Truth Tools than what we talked about yesterday. In the Doctrine and Covenants 59:4 we are told that the reward for those who are seeking Zion, in other words seeking to be pure in heart, is that they will be ”crowned with blessings from above, yea, and with commandments not a few.” Most of us don’t think of commandments as blessings, but the commandments are Truth Tools—amazing Truth Tools that "crown" our lives if we let them.

One of the most powerful of the Truth Tools is prayer. When the negative feelings begin to swell within us calling upon God can dispel them. Another Truth Tool, Forgiveness, works not only on the negative emotion being generated by the offense we are holding a grudge against, but when we forgive and let go of the bad thoughts, we find that other negative feelings melt away also. Forgiving others works in the soul like taking a warm shower works on the body. You may get in the shower because your feet and hands are dirty, but your whole body gets cleaned and it feels so good.

Repentance, fasting, and the Sacrament are also powerful Truth Tools. When we take the time to analyze our lives and identify what we are doing right and what we are doing wrong and then go to the Sacrament Altar ready to sacrifice the things we are doing wrong and commit to do better the coming week,

we are empowered. Sin generates negative emotion and feelings

and when we give up the sin the negative feelings go with it.

In short, these and other commandments are really an enormous blessing in our lives.

They are Truth Tools that allow us to rid our lives of the negative feelings that push us into the Pit of Illusion and allow us to live in Truth where peace, joy, happiness and love abound. As D&C 59 goes on to say, “He who doeth the works of righteousness shall receive his reward, even peace in this world, and eternal life in the world to come” (23).

More On Forgiveness

Usually when we think of forgiveness we think of one situation where we have been hurt and dealing with that situation. But there are other kinds of forgiveness that require us to just let go of all the hurt from many situations. These types of forgiveness usually are needed in family situations.

Families are wonderful. Family relationships are deep rooted and can be a powerful support to every family member. But at the same time, because they are so close and intimate we often experience each other at our very worst. Therefore, family relationships can also create hurt—if we let it.

Many years ago I wrote an article about forgiving our parents for the way they raised us. It was published in the Ensign and was entitled “A Difficult Kind of Forgiveness.” I received a lot of response from that article and realized that almost all of us at some time or another received a few emotional “scars” inflicted by our parents because of things that happened when we were growing up. But we can let go of the past, forgive all that happened and move on. This not only frees us from unnecessary pain; it rejuvenates and enables strong family relationships in the future. Our past may not be what we wanted, but our future can be if we forgive and move on.

Forget the Pain

We’ve been talking about tools or strategies to rid our lives of unnecessary pain. So far we’ve talked about things like music and humor and affirmative thinking. But some of the most powerful tools at our disposal are gospel principles. For example, the principle of forgiveness is absolutely liberating when we learn to use it on a daily basis.

The Greek word used in the New Testament for forgive, is aphiemi which means “to send forth, yield up, to expire. “ Another definition is “To let go, let alone.” When we forgive, obviously we are yielding up thoughts of the offense or situation that we feel shouldn’t have happened, but we are also yielding up the hurt we have been holding onto because of the situation. Every time we think or tell our story of the offense we re-inflict ourselves with pain and usually the pain gets worse with every telling.

The adversary deludes us into thinking that somehow we deserve to cling to our negative story. Somehow we think vengeance will come from holding on to the unjust situation. But clinging to the injustice and refusing to forgive never hurts the other person. They don’t feel the pain. We are the only one that is in pain and we are doing it to ourselves.

The Savior counseled us, “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matt 6:14-15). Forgiving is one of the best ways to free ourselves from the pain caused by negative storytelling. So forgive. Forget. And be free.